ASU assistants’ salaries finalized

Contracts for Arkansas State’s new football assistant coaches aren’t yet finalized, but their salaries are.

New offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Buster Faulkner will make $210,000 in his first season at ASU. New offensive line coach Allen Rudolph will make $150,000, and new running backs coach Norval McKenzie will make $100,000, ASU Athletic Director Terry Mohajir told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday.

Salaries for Faulkner and McKenzie are more than what their predecessors were making. Former offensive coordinator Walt Bell made $205,000 before leaving for Maryland in December, while former running backs coach Anthony Tucker made $90,000 before joining Bell at Maryland last month.

Former offensive line coach Glen Elarbee made $200,000 before leaving for Missouri last month.

The new salaries put ASU’s total for assistants at $1.12 million, which is $35,000 less than the $1.155 million it was last season. But Mohajir said new deals are in the works for most assistants and staff members.

Faulkner joins ASU after spending the past five seasons at Middle Tennessee. Rudolph has held various positions, including at Sun Belt rival Louisiana-Monroe in 2002-2003, and most recently coached the offensive line for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League.

McKenzie, a former Vanderbilt player and graduate assistant, spent the past five seasons as an assistant coach at FCS-level Furman.